San Diego Trip

The last four days for us has been mostly spent in San Diego, California - all thanks to the public holiday of Canada Day. 1st July is Canada Day and my second one since moving to Vancouver and it was a great excuse for a weekend away. Nancy's choice of city was San Diego as she wanted beaches and sunshine due to Vancouver's poor summer weather.

We arrived late morning on Thursday, checked into our hotel and then did all the usual things of exploring the downtown area, harbour and sea front. Also enjoyed a couple of gin and tonics on the roof top bar of our hotel with the sun setting - all in all a relaxing first day in San Diego. However, the next couple of days were full of tourist highlights including a free bus tour of the city and the Old Town - it wasn't suppose to free I should add, but we managed to get away with not paying. The Old Town was a mix of a western-style town and a mexican village, full of gift shops but it was pleasant enough. One of the main highlights for me was in the afternoon as I went aboard the USS Midway, which is the second largest aircraft carrier open to the public. This huge ship is moored in the bay with a array of fighter jets and helicopters stationed on its flight deck. Nancy was too busy sunny herself at the hotel pool to appreciate this beast of ship, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Day three was even more action packed that the previous day, as it started with a two hour boat ride around the San Diego bay. This included a tour of the local ship yards and naval ship yard with about fifteen different war ships, frigates and destroyers, a naval submarine base and even some sea lions! After a dash from the harbour back into downtown, we then joined a Segway tour for the next two hours. After an initial training session in a car park, we set off rather unsteadily through the city streets visiting the local sightseeing sites. We soon got use to the machines and even managed to get them up to their top speed of 12.5 miles per hour! The Segway proved to be great fun and the perfect way to get round the city - note to self, find out the price to buy one. Walking has just been made redundant in my opinion. Also something we should consider for the upcoming Washington DC trip.